Thursday, 3 September 2015

Glantz confirms vaping will have a positive impact on public health

Our dear friend, Dr. Stanton Glantz has once again published a "study", claiming that e-cigarettes and vaping will have a negative effect on public health. But in fact it can be viewed as a strong argument for the opposite, that vaping will have a very positive impact. I'd say the title of his press release (or whatever this is) says it all: "Ecigs likely to have negative population health effects if more than 20-30% as bad as cigs". In other words, since e-cigs are nowhere near 20% as bad as cigs, but are estimated to be at least 95% less harmful, we're not going to see any negative health effects, but rather hugely positive ones.

I have to admit I haven't really read Glantz' study thoroughly, cause when I read his statement about it, the one I linked to above, I realized pretty quickly it simply does not study anything close to reality. In fact I do not believe Dr. Glantz possess the ability to relate to reality at all. He lists the following "interacting effects" of the introduction of e-cigarettes:

Some people are switching to ecigs

Some people end up continuing to smoke cigs because of dual use with ecigs

Some people (kids and young adults) initiate nicotine use with ecigs, some of whom go on to smoke cigs

The actual long-term risks of ecigs are not known, but there are
reasons to think that they could be substantial (albeit lower than
cigarettes).

Well, he might have a tiny grasp of reality anyway, since he have actually noticed that people are switching to e-cigarettes. But it stops there, as you can see. Blaming e-cigarettes for keeping people smoking makes about as much sense as blaming diet coke for all the obese people in the world. I mean, if it had not been for diet coke, they'd all be salad eating, marathon running fitness experts by now right? Besides, if this was to be true, wouldn't this apply Glantz' beloved nicotine gum and patches as well? I mean... we can't just lay it all on diet coke, water will have to take some of the blame as well. Also, Glantz seems to be one of the few people that haven't given up on the gateway theory yet. I'm not even going to go into that, as we still haven't seen a single gateway case yet, at least not in our version of reality, and the theory have been debunked so many times by now that I've lost count. The last "interacting effect" Glantz lists is also the reason for him believing that the headline of his article (or press release or whatever) is actually a bad thing. He actually believes, contrary to all common sense and the rest of the world, that e-cigs could actually be 20-30% as bad as cigs. I don't even think the WHO believes that. In fact, it turns out that Stanton would be surprised if he was wrong and the rest of the world was right:

The key finding of the paper is that under all the likely scenarios, if
ecigs turn out to be 20-30% as dangerous as conventional cigarettes
there will be net harm. No one know what the actual risks will be, but I
would be surprised if the risks are not at least that high.

This is about where I stopped reading. I can think of a gazillion other things to read if fiction was what I was after.

Dr. Glantz, closing his eyes as usual

Our dear friend, Dr. Stanton Glantz has once again published a "study", claiming that e-cigarettes and vaping will have a negative effect on public health. But in fact it can be viewed as a strong argument for the opposite, that vaping will have a very positive impact. I'd say the title of his press release (or whatever this is) says it all: "Ecigs likely to have negative population health effects if more than 20-30% as bad as cigs". In other words, since e-cigs are nowhere near 20% as bad as cigs, but are estimated to be at least 95% less harmful, we're not going to see any negative health effects, but rather hugely positive ones.

I have to admit I haven't really read Glantz' study thoroughly, cause when I read his statement about it, the one I linked to above, I realized pretty quickly it simply does not study anything close to reality. In fact I do not believe Dr. Glantz possess the ability to relate to reality at all. He lists the following "interacting effects" of the introduction of e-cigarettes:

Some people are switching to ecigs

Some people end up continuing to smoke cigs because of dual use with ecigs

Some people (kids and young adults) initiate nicotine use with ecigs, some of whom go on to smoke cigs

The actual long-term risks of ecigs are not known, but there are
reasons to think that they could be substantial (albeit lower than
cigarettes).

Well, he might have a tiny grasp of reality anyway, since he have actually noticed that people are switching to e-cigarettes. But it stops there, as you can see. Blaming e-cigarettes for keeping people smoking makes about as much sense as blaming diet coke for all the obese people in the world. I mean, if it had not been for diet coke, they'd all be salad eating, marathon running fitness experts by now right? Besides, if this was to be true, wouldn't this apply Glantz' beloved nicotine gum and patches as well? I mean... we can't just lay it all on diet coke, water will have to take some of the blame as well. Also, Glantz seems to be one of the few people that haven't given up on the gateway theory yet. I'm not even going to go into that, as we still haven't seen a single gateway case yet, at least not in our version of reality, and the theory have been debunked so many times by now that I've lost count. The last "interacting effect" Glantz lists is also the reason for him believing that the headline of his article (or press release or whatever) is actually a bad thing. He actually believes, contrary to all common sense and the rest of the world, that e-cigs could actually be 20-30% as bad as cigs. I don't even think the WHO believes that. In fact, it turns out that Stanton would be surprised if he was wrong and the rest of the world was right:

The key finding of the paper is that under all the likely scenarios, if
ecigs turn out to be 20-30% as dangerous as conventional cigarettes
there will be net harm. No one know what the actual risks will be, but I
would be surprised if the risks are not at least that high.

This is about where I stopped reading. I can think of a gazillion other things to read if fiction was what I was after.